


This Love Is Alive, Back From The Dead

by notalone91



Series: LoserFest 2021 [7]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Stan lives too but i don't know enough about jewish funerals to make it work the way i wanted to, Suicide Attempt, and not particularly graphic, but totally failed, i just didn't want to offend, know that he's alive, so just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:35:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29282352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalone91/pseuds/notalone91
Summary: When all of their physical wounds appear healed, Richie sets on an attempt to make himself feel better one way or another.  That is until his biggest wound shows up on his own.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: LoserFest 2021 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138544
Kudos: 24





	This Love Is Alive, Back From The Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Day 7 - A Track From 1989 (This Love)

With Pennywise vanquished, there was nothing left for the remaining living members of the Losers Club to do but try to figure out how to go back to their lives. Bill had fled immediately. Mike started putting together his escape plans. Ben and Bev were going to leave together the next morning. That just left one. 

Knocking on his door, bringing in a bag of greasy fast food breakfast items, Bev let herself into his room. “Richie? Honey, we're gonna head out.”” She sat on the foot of his bed, looking every bit happy and settled… somehow, deeply worried and vaguely maternal. “Richie? Please talk to me?” She placed her hand on his hip and shook him. “Are you awake?” She knew he was. She’d heard him crying when she woke up. She rolled him onto his back and made him look at her. “Hey. Are you sure you don't want to leave with us?”

“No offense, Bev,” Richie said, grabbing his glasses off the bedside table and wincing at the irritation in his eyes and on Bev’s face, “but I really don't want to watch you and Ben fall more in love. I'm good to stay for a couple more days. I think- “ he rolled onto his side and took her hand. “I think it's better that I stay. Someone should help Mike get his shit together.” 

The look on her face made it clear that Richie was in no shape to be helping anyone get their shit together. She sighed heavily and patted his hand. “Okay. At least come downstairs and see us off?”

Richie looked up at her, desperately imploring her to leave him alone. It didn’t take a genius for him to realize she was saying that it was not an option. “Fine,” he groaned, pulling the covers up around his shoulders. “Do you mind? I sleep naked,” he said, gesturing at himself, then to the door. Instead of giving him privacy, she pulled her knees up to her chest and simply batted her eyes at him. “Suit yourself.” He had warned her. He could only hope the noise on the stairs wasn’t Ben choosing to make his way to check on them just then. Not that he’d have objected to a menage a trois situation, but on the off chance that Ben’s good humor didn’t carry over from the Jade, he didn’t think that he’d make it out of the room alive.

Not that that was in his plan in the first place.

“I'm not going anywhere until I'm sure you're coming downstairs. You’re anything but modest, honey. Besides, if I see anything I’m not expecting, I’ll let you know,” she laughed, chucking a pillow at him.

He smiled at her. She really was a good guy. He threw on a pair of jeans and a dark t-shirt, then covered it with a grey sweatshirt he’d nicked from Eddie’s closet after he’d showered the night before. It smelled like him. He didn’t know what to do with the fact that he, now, had a library of things he could remember about Eddie and Eddie wasn’t here. He hated it. 

“You good?” she asked, when they finally started to make their way downstairs arm in arm.

Richie fought off the urge to make a joke. He looked at her, really asking out of a place of sincerity, then decided for honesty. “No,” he said quietly, holding her a little more tightly. 

She gave him a watery smile. “I know. But you will be,” she assured. She wanted to tell him that she knew. She wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone; that they were all going to miss Eddie. But he had to know that. 

They rounded the corner and into the small galley kitchen off the bar. Ben was reading the Derry Herald on the counter, still nursing his coffee. “Hey, man. You gonna come with?” he asked amicably. Bev closed her eyes and shook her head imploringly. “At least promise you'll visit soon?” he asked, a little put out that Richie wasn’t going to come with. He’d spent so long alone that he’d kind of hoped that, maybe, he’d get to spend a little bit more time with his friends now that he remembered them. 

"I promise," he lied.

He smiled, putting his paper cup down and pulling Richie into a hug. “Good.” He held him a little longer than he really had to.

Richie helped them load up Ben’s car. He hugged Bev a dozen more times. He assured Ben over and over that he’d call and visit and all of those things that you say when you really just want to be left alone. He loved them. He did. But he was exhausted and he just wanted it to be over now. By the time they finally drove away, he could just stand there and wave. Just as he’d done as the Lucky Seven’s numbers had dwindled until it was just him and Mike for their senior year. And so it was again.

This time, though, he had no intent of spending any more time with Mike. He wasn’t mad. It was nothing personal, but he hadn’t really wanted to spend that much additional time with the future Mr. and Mrs. Beverly Marsh. He’d thought that it would make things more difficult, but as it turned out, it was just draining. He walked back up into his room at the in, wrote something out quickly, then tore it up. It was stupid. It didn’t matter. He dropped the scraps into the toilet and pissed over them, flushed and headed out. 

Once he got into the car, there were only 2 stops he had any intention of making. The first was, of course, the kissing bridge. It required no thought. He walked right up to the space on the guard rail. Two little initials left there for all eternity by a sad, sappy 13 year old. The sad, sappy 40 year old knelt by the markings and did them over, tears stinging his eyes just the same as they had that summer so long before. 

After that, he made a bee line for the quarry. It was strange, rolling up on the top access point in a car. He got out, tossed the keys on the seat, and closed the door. 

As he made the walk through the trees to the familiar bare spot, he thought back to the hundreds of time he and his friends had made the running leap into it’s depth. Even the day prior, they’d done it. It was engrained into his motion, as much as anything else was. The worst part was that he had these memories now and they all hurt so much. His favorite part of them was gone.

Richie looked out over the water, out over the rest of Derry. When he was a kid, he wanted more than anything else to get out. And he’d done it. He’d made something of himself, to some extent. At the very least, he’d gotten out and he’d had some chucks along the way. Now, here he was, ready to commit Derry. 

He took two slow steps, took his glasses offclosed his eyes, then took one more small step.

He was falling and falling and then, the sting of the water. It hurt. Bad. He could still hear the splash he made echoing inside his head. He still felt like he was falling. Now, though, the world was getting brighter. It was so much quicker than he’d expected. He’d thought there would have been a realization that he was dead. He would never have expected it to feel like he was being pulled.

It felt like he was being pulled. 

Felt like it because he was. He was being pulled across the water to the hill of stone where Ben had told them all about the history of Derry. “What the fuck,” he heard a breathless voice snap as he coughed the water out of his lungs. “You know just as well as I do that you have to push out from the rocks as you jump if you don’t want to land in the shallows and break your neck.” He opened his eyes, but couldn’t see. Even in death, he apparently needed his fucking glasses. Still, he didn’t need them to know who’s voice it was. He wrenched himself out of the tight, trembling grasp momentarily and replaced the glasses. “Do you want to die, asshole?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed, as though that explained everything. He watched Eddie’s face morph from frustration to pain. “And if you're here, I must have gotten my way.” He leaned up and kissed him once, then realized what he’d done and what exactly it meant. “Hi,” he said breathlessly before sitting up “This is exactly what I wanted,” he said, leaning forward until Eddie met him halfway. “God, you're even letting me kiss you so I know we both must be dead,” he laughed. Eddie groaned, then grabbed him to kiss him again before hugging him as tightly as possible. Richie dissolved “Thank you. I couldn’t do it without you,” he sobbed, snot dripping on the shoulder of Eddie’s royal purple polo. “God, I missed you. I love you. I should have told you the minute I remembered. I should have-”

Eddie’s eyes about popped out of his head. “Both? Are you kidding me?” He wasn’t dead. Neaither was Richie. They were both breathing. They were fucking fine. “Richie, I drag my ass out of the sewer to find you walking down to the God damn quarry and you're throwing yourself in.” Then, it hits him. He should probably have been listening all along. “You couldn't do it? Couldn’t do what?”

“Live without you,” Richie said quietly, averting his eyes and desperately avoiding Eddie’s scrutinizing gaze.

That’s when it hit him. He sat down on a rock beside him and tried to wrap his head around it. “Oh, shit. You were trying to-” No. No that wasn’t going to work. He pulled Richie up and hugged him tight. “Richie, I'm fine,” he said soothingly. “I'm here, now. Richie, here,” he said, when he seemed not to believe what was right in front of him. He took his hand and pressed it to his chest, “feel. I'm alive.” He then moved their hands together to his carotid, then Richie’s, both pulsing away rapidly.

Immediately, he was relieved. Then, the memories of the last couple of days hit him and, “No,” he said, dazed, “you're not. We left you down th-”

“Yeah, thanks for that, by the way,” he spat. Richie jerked back, startled. Eddie gave him a light shake. “I'm kidding. You guys wouldn't have made it out alive if you didn't. Everything was collapsing.” 

Richie’s brows furrowed. “How do you know that?” he asked. He pulled Eddie up to his feet.

“I don't… I'm not sure,” he stammered. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t with them. But he was. Or, at least, he felt like it. “I…”

He folded his arms and cocked one hip to the side. “If you want me to believe that you're real and not just my neurons firing randomly to make me comfortable before I actually die, I'm gonna need something a little more concrete,” Richie said with a smile. Even if it was just his brain chemicals, it was the best chemical cocktail he could ever have gotten, and this was being provided for him free. What a trip. When he thought of hos much he’d spent on booze and coke and who knows what else over the years, it was almost devastating. Almost. But he was too blissed out on Eddie to actually give a shit.

“Just, give me a minute, fuckhead. Okay?” Eddie blathered. He backed up and started pacing. “The last thing I remember clearly before I came to! I said I fucked your mother.” Richie nodded. He had certainly said that, little asshole, but he’d been dwelling on that for 24 solid hours. His brain would be able to provide that without any effort at all. Eddie spun on his heel and pointed at him. “You were telling me I would be okay, that you were going to get me out of there. Things start to get fuzzy, with the deadlights and the yelling,” he said, hands spinning and gesturing out of control, “but you were kneeling next to me, and I started to say that I loved you but I ran out of breath.” That, Richie didn’t know. He moved a little closer, then took him by the hands. “I thought I died because I wasn’t in my body anymore, and Stan…” It didn’t make sense. Stan wasn’t there, but he was, “we helped you crush It's heart. There was a turtle. It told us that we deserved to be rewarded for being a part of banishing It from this coil for good. Then, I was back in the cave,” he shook his head and Richie almost wanted him to stop. Almost, but he needed to know. He needed to know everything. “Everything had collapsed. I had to go out another way. I wound up in the barrens. When I got back to the inn, I thought everyone was gone. But I got out of the shower and Bev was in your doorway. So, I followed you out. And now,” he said gesturing around them.

It made sense, but somehow it didn’t. He was dead. He knew he was. He’d felt for his pulse. It wasn’t there. He wasn’t breathing. “You-” he looked down and shook his head. “How?” That was the answer he needed.

“Do you still have the scar on your hand?” he asked, showing that he didn’t have his.

Richie didn’t even have to look. They’d noticed it before, standing on center street. “No. It's gone.” Then, it dawned on him. “So is the cut on Mike’s arm.”

Eddie nodded then untucked his shirt. “Look,” he said, revealing nothing but smooth, pale skin and lightly defined abs and gesturing that his cheek no longer sported gauze covering a stab wound..

Willing himself not to notice the abs, Richie stared at the spot where he’d been impaled. No scar, no nothing. “You're okay?” he asked.

“I'm okay. Richie, I'm f-” he didn’t get the chance to finish that thought, because Richie sent them both tumbling back into the water. When they splashed to a stop, Richie wound up with his knees on either side of Eddie. He kissed him over and over. Eddie wasn’t likely to take that. Not that easily. He pushed hard and rolled over, switching their positions. “Great going, asshole. I really don't want to deal with greywater anymore than I have to.” Before he’d even finished that sentence, he was on his back once more, his argument being interrupted by kisses. “If I end up sick because I had to save your sorry ass, I'll kill you myself.”

Meanwhile, Richie argued back between each meeting of their lips, “Oh, come on, it's not that serious. We're not in the sewer. This is just the quarry. It's not even reclaimed, it's-”

Then, as if from nowhere, he stopped, leaned down to enclose Eddie’s lips in a longer, more meaningful kiss. When they separated, Eddie opened his eyes and realized Richie had been crying. “Rich?” he asked quietly.

“I'm sorry. I just didn't think I was gonna get the chance to do that again,” he sniffed.

Propping himself up on his elbows, Eddie asked for clarification, “Do what?”

He stood and tugged Eddie to his feet along with him. “Fight with you over stupid shit,” he admitted, embarrassed. “Or just talk to you. But it really is you, isn't it?” he said, brushing the tears out from behind his glasses. “You're actually here.”

“I am,” he said, pulling Richie into a tight hug. He let him cry again. Twice in two days, he’d cried in that same water because of Eddie. There was definitely a measurable amount of Richie tears in there. This time, though, it wasn’t the same. It was relief and release. Most of all, it was tears of joy. All Eddie could do was smile. “I'm here, you fucking wimp,” he whispered fondly.

Richie choked out a shocked, pathetic little “Hey!”

Eyes rolling harder than Stan’s ever had, Eddie pressed himself back a little bit. “You just saved the world. Do you think I'm seriously calling you a wimp?” With a shrug that was clearly meant to signify a feeling of if-the-shoe-fits, Richie nodded. That would never work. Eddie reached up and patted Richie’s cheek fondly. “You're braver than you think.”

“That's my line,” Richie snickered. He leaned down and kissed him again. Again and again, until they both realized that, if they were going to do anything monroe, they needed to find someplace that wasn’t rocks and dirty water. 

They got up to Richie’s rental and Eddie tugged him down into the backseat. It wasn’t comfortable. He’d severely underestimated how narrow the car was. After some dry humping led to a close call, they clamored up into the front. Richie got them back to the townhouse in, what he could only assume, was record time.

Up the stairs they went together, clothes being removed mostly before they’d even reached the landing. Richie pressed Eddie back against the stained glass window and lifted, catching him by surprise. “Thought you’d like that,” Richie said, voice nearly a lustful growl. 

Eddie hitched his hips up into Richie, making his arousal known. “I like it all,” he panted, “but only when it’s coming from you.” By the time they made it up to Richie’s room, there was no time for much else past getting straight down to business. “Are you going to fuck me or what?”

At that point, Richie was fairly certain he blacked out. He knocked Eddie back onto the bed and had his way with him. Eddie laid back against the pillows, tired in ways he had never imagined, Richie laying on his chest, talking idly about what he was working on before Mike called. This, he thought, was the way he was meant to spend his time- wrapped up in Richie. 

Sensing the slight change in Eddie’s breathing, Richie looked up at him. “Go to sleep, Eds. I can finish telling you later.” He pressed his lips to Eddie’s and smiled. Yeah, he could get used to that. 

That was a thought that filled him with dread. He could get used to this and it could all disappear. He knew how close he’d come to ending it all today. Feeling the way he had, he would have tried again if it hadn’t worked. He knew that. But if he got the chance to love Eddie- really love him, and it got ripped away as everything in Derry had always seemed to, it would have broken him.

Once he was sure that Eddie was sound asleep, he grabbed a pair of dry, clean boxers, his phone, and his smokes from his duffel and snuck out onto the fire escape. “Hey, did you and loverboy actually leave yet?” he asked in place of a greeting.

“No. We got a couple towns away and I just…” Bev answered without hesitation. “I had a feeling we needed to stop for the night. Are you okay?”

He lit a cigarette and drew in a breath. “You should come back,” he said through the smoke.

On the other end of the line, Richie heard Bev take a sharp breath and knew she was doing the same thing he was. It was just like old times, just like they were sitting together. “Why?” she asked.

“Trust me,” Richie assured.

Further away, he heard Ben ask, “Who is it?”

“Richie. He says we should come back.”

“Why? Is it-” 

There was a pause. It didn’t require saying. Is it It, he was asking. Unfortunately, Bev couldn’t bring herself to assume anything. “I don't think so,” was the best she could do. Her voice grew clearer. “Are you safe? Is it-”

He hated that, as much as he wanted to assure her that it wasn’t, he couldn’t. But, since she couldn’t see his face, he would just have to try. “Nothing like that. Just…” he looked up at the window and smiled. “Just, come back, okay?”

“Of course,” she said softly. He could almost hear her looking at Ben apologetically. “First thing in the morning, honey.”

“Thanks, Bev,” he said.

There was a brief pause. He could tell that she was struggling with what she wanted to say. “Is there-” Anything we can do for you? Anything that will make it easier? Instead, she settled on “Do you need anything?”

Glancing back at the window again, he laughed out a puff of smoke. “No. I'm set.” He said, realizing that everything he needed was in that room. But the implications of that- 

“Richie, come back inside,” Eddie called out to him, one leg holding the door to the fire escape open. “Are you smoking out here?” he asked in a half whine. He darted up the steps and covered his mouth quickly.

Bev asked past him, “Is that-”

“Sh!”

“Why are you shushing me?” Eddie said, prying himself out from under his hand, making a distasteful grimace at the cigarette smell on his hand. “Who are you on the phone with?” he asked.

He leaned in, holding his arm as far away from his face as he could. “I'll tell you in a minute. I'll-” Eddie tried to interrupt him, but found his mouth covered again. “Shh! I'll be right in.”

“Fine. I'm not kissing you until you brush your teeth,” he warned. “Shoulda fucking called you Ashmouth.”

Beverly tried to keep her voice in check. “Richie, we'll be there tomorrow morning, as early as we can. Don't…” she looked up at Ben, who was slumped in the chair by the little breakfast table, stunned, “don't do anything stupid.

Richie thought, at first, to feign offense, but he realized that, if he did, she’d know. He simply answered back a quiet, “I won't.”

He gathered his thoughts, frustrated with the implication that he’d do anything that was not in their combined best interest, especially with Eddie there i his bed. Sure, his answer to that just 12 hours before would have been different, but this was now. 

Reaching his room, Richie was immediately greeted by Eddie’s grumpy face. “You called Bev?” he huffed. 

Witha sigh, he rubbed his face. “Yes. I started thinking which, I know, is never good, but what if something goes wrong? Or what if it's to do with the fucking clown? Or what if you die again?”

“Richie-”

He raised his eyebrows dramatically. “Come on. I could have marched you to Mikey for some ancient native american exorcism or some shit,’ he laughed.

Eddie rolled his eyes again. “Don't even joke, Richie. You know that that is a very real possibility and you know that I will give in because you both deserve an answer.” He sat himself down on the bed. “I just wanted a little more time first.”

Sitting down beside him, Richie wrapped Eddie in his arms. “Look. I just want to have our bases covered here, okay?” Eddie nodded. He understood. That didn’t mean he had to like it. Still, Richie leaned against him and kissed his neck, adding, “And I think that, maybe, you and I are too close to this to think about it clearly.”

“You’re not close to it,” Eddie scoffed, rolling his head to the side to allow for better access. “You’re in it.”

Richie’s voice dipped low. “Technically speaking, I was in it earlier,” he said, leaning Eddie back, “so now, I am indeed close.” 

“Semantics,” Eddie dismissed, especially considering that it was likely that he’d be back in it at least twice more before their friends got there the following morning. Stupid or not.

The next morning, Ben and Bev rolled up to the library and, without so much as a word, unceremoniously dragged him out of bed and and into their car. He had been looking for answers where he was bound not to get them. They guided him into the townhouse and led him up to Richie’s room. He opened the door quietly, noting a lump in the middle fo the bed that was very much a person. 

“Wake up, Sleepyhead!” Mike called. Stripping the blanket off of the bed, he revealed not one, but two of his best friends, naked and entwined, startled out of their sleep, shouting foggy curses at him. He clasped a hand over his mouth, laughing in shock and booked it out. 

Bev stuck her hand out and Ben begrudgingly slid a $20 into it. Of course all he would do is laugh and run. He had no reason to faint. But still, it confirmed it. Eddie was alive and certainly one of them was doing something stupid.


End file.
